Tony Abbott is set to announce his new frontbench this morning.
All the reports suggest that the winners are the hard Right – including the resurrection of Howard era waxworks Bronwyn Bishop and Kevin Andrews, and the astonishing selection of Eric Abetz as industrial relations shadow.
Climate change denialist Nick Minchin is tipped to get Energy, and Cory Bernardi and Sophie Mirabella will receive their rewards.
Barnaby Joyce comes out of the cold, with a senior position – probably Finance.
No doubt all this will be talked up as providing a clear point of differentiation with the government. There are a few moderates remaining to put a gloss on it – but essentially what we will see is something even more right wing than the Howard Cabinet. That should go down well.
Update: The full list can be found here.
Bernard Keane in Crikey:
The Opposition has taken a dramatic lurch to the right with the announcement of one of the most conservative frontbenches since the 1980s battles between Liberal moderates and conservatives.
Right-wingers Kevin Andrews, Bronwyn Bishop, Cory Bernardi, Barnaby Joyce, Sophie Mirabella, Connie Fierravanti-Wells and Philip Ruddock have been promoted, making the new coalition line-up the most socially conservative in a generation. Eric Abetz has also been promoted into the key industrial relations portfolio, a clear sign that labour market deregulation is now back on the agenda for the Opposition.
…
At his first press conference as leader, Abbott promised all shades of opinion would be represented on his frontbench. They are, but it is dominated by denialists and right-wingers, and simply doesn’t look competitive with the government.
Update: Still Life With Cat.
Update: Richard Farmer:
The sooner we get the next election over with the better. The prospect of an Opposition “focused on criticising the Government rather than speculating about ourselves” is just too horrible to contemplate.
…
We are going to have the last election campaign all over again with the exception of a Coalition this time opposed to emissions trading rather than in favour.
“That should go down well.”
Precisely. A huge electoral defeat. Unfortunately it will make the whole discussion in the msm etc. more rightwing as well…
As the comments on the ABC thread suggest, they have gone stark raving bonkers. I mean, what else can you conclude. My fears about Abbott have dissolved. Only the lunatic ultra right wing fringe would vote for this lot, and there’s not enough of them.
I really think Abbott should go to the election with a ‘more conservative than Howard’ theme, with photos of Bishop and Andrews behind him looking stern and cleverly Photoshopped montages of military personnel pointing guns at boatloads of refugee woman and children.
Hang on, didn’t Glenn Milne and Dennis Shanahan proclaim all of this as evidence of Tony Abbott’s tactical genius, as demonstrated by the return of the Ute Men of Chadstone and Hornsby (working class suburb if ever there was one) to the Liberal fold?
Latest report: Minchin gets energy and resources, Abetz gets workplace relations.
I can’t wait.
And Phil Ruddock’s back, so the Shadow Cabinet can draw on his “extraordinary corporate knowledge.”
Isn’t this just very poor politics from Abbott? He’s going to have a backbench full of people seething at this reshuffle, with Turnbull happily urging them along. He’s guaranteed even more instability and unhappiness in his own party. But I guess Minchin told him what to do.
The moderates really need to grow a spine and ask for another spill.
Bronwyn Bishop? Seriously? I… I have no words.
A shadowy ministry has been chosen, you would have to say.
Jeez, there’s a wealth of talent on his front bench.
I’m a bit surprised that Iron Bar didn’t get some crumbs, though. I remember what an excellent Minister for Resources he was (briefly) in Howard’s cabinet.
Greg Hunt’s getting climate change as well as environment. HAHAHAHA! He’ll be lying through his teeth everytime he opens his mouth. I wonder how he’ll get on with the new energy shadow?
Jesus, not even Malcolm Fraser gave that portfolio to an agrarian socialist.
Is this Big Government Conservatism, or Denialism Trumps Everything at work?
Abbott thinks he is consolidating the Howard model, making it the permanent face of the Coalition. That mightn’t be such a good idea.
(And how is it that Christopher Pyne gets to play at being the official small ‘l’ Liberal? Because he supported Turnbull in the spill? So what, so did McFarlane! Pyne is an Abbott-approved stooge going back years.)
From Rudd’s twitter feed:
Zombieland gives me a whole new perspective on what to watch out for in politics. Boys loved it. I’m not sure. Anyone else seen it? KRudd
A comment on the reshuffle?
I guess an Abbott’s got to have a Bishop, if he doesn’t have a Costello, that is.
Bronwyn Bishop gets aged care?
This is a serious conflict of interest issue!
That’s gold, Fine @ 14. Rudd has a nice wit, it seems.
Abbott asked – on Bishop’s appointment: “And what aspect of the Kerosene baths affair do you think will appeal to seniors?”
LOL!
more here…
http://guttertrash.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/abbotts-broad-church-just-got-a-whole-lot-narrower/#comment-12731
But Abbott is wittier. He’s given Mirabella, Science. A climate denier! What’s her first policy going to be – a Royal Commission to investigate whether the earth really goes around the sun? Or is it the other way round? I’m not sure of anything anymore.
Don’t you believe it.
Fine,
First of all she has to work out whether all this Enlightenment Garbage about the earth being round should be permitted to continue as the basis of astronomy and geography etc. After all, if its not true, we can just sweep the carbon emissions off the edge, a bit like you sweep dust off a carpet. And lets face it, you couldn’t put carpets down flat if the earth was round could you?
Let us all hope that the electorate has more brains than the leader of the opposition, because if this lot win the next election we are all up S***t creek in a barbed wire canoe.
Just in…
New Liberal Party Front bench pose for the cameras…
CLICK!
I’d vote for that lot all right.
@ 20 Pavlov’s Cat, I have no doubt that Christopher Pyne isn’t Abbott’s closest BFF, but the two have long worked together on the idea of building each other up as representing ‘approved moderate’ and ‘approved conservative’ Liberalism, to the detriment of those with other ideas.
They’re a two man circle jerk when it comes to having a shared interest in manipulating the Overton window of Liberal Party ideology. Hence Pyne the Liberal Movement heir is pro-life, and Abbott the tribal Catholic tells us that republicanism is unAustralian.
It’s easy to disagree on the smaller processes when you agree on the broader methods of purifying the party…
Nickws, I think Dr Cat was referring to something … different. Something which would probably be actionable if spelt out.
I just read on the ABC’s website, that Abbot’s new shadow cabinet will give the govt “the fright of its life.” I reckon they’ve already started on the second case of champagne, tears of laughter streaming down their faces.
Im looking forward to Tanner tearing Barnaby apart. Will be good for a laugh.
Fine @8, I think Turnbull’s already been doing quite a bit of urging.
reb @23, they look far too modern and progressive for the Abbott front bench.
DI(nr) @26, I reckon you’d get the fright of your life if you saw that lot looking at you! Just reading the names made me reach for the blood pressure medication!
Reb at 23,
You took the photo from the wrong angle. Try this one:
CLICK
Joyce as Finance? I’m voting Labor. For the first time ever.
We’re in for some laughs with Joyce on the front bench. Thickest ever shadow minister, perhaps?
Reb – funny
Denmore – seriously unfunny
Mr Denmore, you’ve crossed the Rubicon.
Godwin’s Law now infects this thread.
Pity, there’s a lot more laughs to be had.
Agreed, HC.
Update: The full list can be found here.
Bernard Keane in Crikey:
Joyce is not thick, he just has attention-span problems. But this is not an issue as far as the Australian electorate is concerned, surely.
Lindsay Tanner won’t have the opportunity to “tear” Barney apart because the latter is in the Senate and Tanner is in the House. Perhaps the Hon. John Philip Faulkner could step in there.
Still let us not forget that the ALP has its own roomful of cretins as ministers. Like Stephen Conroy, to name one.
Sir HC: Oh, Joyce is thick alright. Inevitably aggressively clueless in the face of questioning on just about anything. True enough that the electorate won’t care. But I look forward to hearing him being pressed on the details of his portfolio by journos. It will be one small entertaining element in our generally wearisome polity.
What Labor needs is not to fall in the trap of demonising Abbot and the Liberal front bench as a bunch of ignorant wackos, because whether we like it or not there is a substantial part of the Australian electorate which is attracted to the ‘straight talking’ Barnaby Joyce type of politician.
They identify with this type of politician and by denigrating them they denigrate the voter as well.
An intelligent dismantling of their arguments is the best bet.
“It will be one small entertaining element in our generally wearisome polity.”
Oh I don’t know about that.
I think the new Liberal Party line-up promises to deliver a highly entertaining spectacle of pure unrelenting comedy when Parliament resumes next week.
It will be pure Gold!!
I might even set up a small stall selling samosas out the front of Parliament house!
I wonder if Channel Nine would want me back for a Christmas special….
Joyce isn’t stupid, he’s just nuts.
Or, more to the point, he gets his policy ideas from sources even more deranged than The Spectator and Fox News.
If the answers he gave in a Lateline interview on 03-Dec-2009 are any indication, he’s decided that he wants to be Nick Minchin’s new best mate.
naturally I meant “next year” D’oh!
Now where did I put that mango chutney….
It does look like a 1980s Uni Liberal club debating squad. But it’s economically right-wing less in an ‘economic rationalist’ sense than in a populist economic libertarian sense, Joyce would fit happily in the US Republican tradition of tax cuts with no regard to the budget deficit.
I agree Guido. Legitimising this team can only be good in the long run. And let’s be fair, the right were so respectful of Mark Latham weren’t they.
Tony Abbott choosing his shadown cabinet:
Typo: shadow cabinet (it was the keyboard’s fault)
Good point Guido.
Although it would be terribly tempting to just ridicule them.
I don’t think I would be able to resist the temptation.
Mugshots of fresh new shadow cabinet.
FDB that is fantastic!
I found a picture of them here.
Reading some of the comments above this was what popped into my head:
“For gorsake stop laughing, this is serious!!!”
For those who are too young here is the cartoon source [I grabbed the first reference off the web].
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/For-gorsake-keep-laughing-this-is-serious/2005/02/18/1108609358587.html
@ 26 David Irving, ah, double entendre, and I don’t get it. Which means it must be pretty shocking.
Anyway, imagine a boot smashing into the face of slightly reformist, slightly green, middle Australia
foreveruntil Hockey is brought in to salvage the party ala Neil Kinnock. That’s the whole point of this new alternate govt. That’s their trajectory as of today.I like these two as Abbott privy council doppelgängers.
patrickg at 49 wins the pic prize. And it ties in very nicely with Laurie Oakes (Nine News)quip of seeing Abbott ” …Do the Time Warp Again.” amid shots of Bronny, Andrews and (Rocky Horror himself) Ruddock floating through all smiles.
Bronny as shadow minister for seniors? What’s Abbot got against us oldies?
Kevin Andrews shadow cabinet minister for families, housing and human services? What has Abbot got against families, houses and humans?
Remind me again – what demographic does the coalition expect to be supported by?
Ross Lightfoot would have made this cabinet if he stayed on.
Thank you Reb, Mr Dunmore and Sir Henry C. Three belly laughs one after the other are too rare!
Does the comment on Greg Hunt as likely to lie every time he opens his mouth mean he will be compromising himself and his principles? My impression of him has always been that of a well informed flake, with flicking tongue and shifty eyes.
Maryse Payne I thought of as a moderate. Is her promotion a preemptive buying of loyalty to prevent a possible defection to Turnbull if the ETS re-run looks like getting up in February? And how do their appointments similarly affect Pyne, Hockey and MacFarlane?
Looks like a scratch team to me. Or perhaps payback for services rendered. Or could likely backbenchers have been sane enough to have resisted an offer, keeping their powder dry pro tem?
Looks like Mr People Skills has a related fine talent in Recruitment Skills?
This only adds to my suspicion that Ruddock is merely a golem used as an empty vessel whenever the Liberals run out of “talent”. Geez his corpse is looking ratty though, he needs a bit of panel beating.
A commenter over at my place wants to know whether it’s possible to be a senior and a loyal girl at the same time.
Why can I see so many of the newly appointed wearing SS regalia?
… hmmmm just moseying (not Mosleying) around here, keep it tidy folks …..
CLICK!
(Back Row, L to R: Bishop, J.; Tuckey, W.; Joyce, B.; Mirabella, S.)
(Front row: Pyne, C.)
Saving my pennies for a trip to Canberra and a samosa! This will be fun.
Wondering if Warren Truss OKed the elevation of Barnaby on the grounds that it was better to have him in the tent, and/or because once Barnaby opens his trap on economics, he will stop looking like leadership material?
Julia Gillard won’t be able to make mincemeat of Abetz in Question Time as he’s in the wrong House — is this an attempt to dilute her effectiveness?
Via Armagnac I learnt that Sharman Stone blames her fall on the fact that “she had sought to steer a middle course between party moderates and hardliners.”
That statement alone is scary enough without thinking what the new shadow minister proposes.
Yes Shaun, Sharman inadvertantly proves the flat earth theory: a parallel course between two destinations and you steer right off the edge of the earth.
Someone should remind her to wave at the turtles on the way past. I’m pretty sure it’s turtles.
Yup, it’s turtles all the way down afaik…
Maybe the Libs plan to release maps of the oceans north of Australia with the legend “here be monsters” and a pic of Ruddock.
@60 – yes, no more Godwins, please!
Update: Still Life With Cat.
This is very interesting. http://www.smh.com.au/national/damned-disappointed-climate-change-denier-left-out-of-abbotts-team-20091208-kgpk.html
The ABC was reporting that Jensen also wrote that he was concerned that the best team hadn’t been chosen (because he wasn’t on it).
For a supposed policy wonk there’s a lot of narcissism there. Greg Hunt would be the pro-real-science Liberal version of Dr Jensen (Hunt was writing uni papers on AGW in the late eighties) and I just can’t imagine him screaming, “Me, look at me! It’s all about me! I does the science for your sins!”
What will Bronwyn Bishop do if the world runs out of kerosene due to peak oil?
Tony Jones, once again, skewered Abbott’s climate insanity tonight. Dunno why Abbot bothers going on there. He ended with a whinge that at least he turned up to have a go – unlike Rudd who, he says, refuses to appear on Lateline.
Paul @2
Only the lunatic ultra right wing fringe would vote for this lot, and there’s not enough of them.
Just about 37% of the electorate. Some ‘fringe’ !
I do wonder how Bronwyn Bishop liked being referred to as a ‘senior’. She strikes me as the kind of lady who doesn’t like her age to be discussed.
Update: Richard Farmer:
Copenhagen “some latter-day environmental Munich agreement kind of thing”.
Please consider the insanity of this statement. Its the statement of a fringe whacko with a tinfoil hat on, printing pamphlets in a gun shed in Gympie.
They are going to get pounded into the dirt by the electorate.
I hope so, 66! But I live in fear. Just watched a couple of old Senator Fielding youtubes on the importance of an open mind. Left me a bit shaken.
Don’t panic, Australians can be implicitly trusted to break the decent way when presented with the alternatives. Even if it’s only through apathy – you have to remember that ultimately “doing something about climate change” is in reality a conservative position. It entails trusting that the comfortable status quo can be maintained. That is what Ute Men want – not rising sea levels and massive waves of climate refugees, another beer and Richie Benaud please.
Tonight, on Lateline, we got the confirmation of Tony Abbott’s campaign meme which he will now transmit incessantly until the next federal election: “Mr Rudd’s massive new tax”. As Gerry Henderson is fond of saying, no surprises there.
The interview also gave Tony Abbott the opportunity to reveal to us that he is speaking to us with a forked tongue.
On the one hand, Abbott is seemingly going along with the proposition put up by egghead boffins that there’s a chance that the globe is warming and that we may have to do something about it, especially if the Americans get out of the starting blocks and whack on a tariff.
Abbott stressed on Lateline that his argument was not with the science or scientists but with the way the climate change is dealt with at a political level.
But on the other hand, Abbott told radio host Alan Jones – worth checking out for the mutual feather stroking: http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/Pages/Article.aspx?ID=3846 – that “there doesn’t appear to have been any appreciable warming since the late 1990s,” while Copenhagen is “some latter-day environmental Munich agreement kind of thing…” In other words, the Hitlers of climate change action are browbeating weak world leaders into singing up; in case the reader is confused, let me offer an explanation: the climate Nazis are being advised by the Communists who are now masquerading as environment alarmists.
In the interview with the Parrot there was some discussion of the working-class electorates that may be receptive to the denialist message, no doubt assisted by the constituents’ fear that they may lose their jobs at the brown-coal mines – Gippsland was one such place, Abbott said.
Memo Tony Abbott: the brown coal electorates in the Gippsland are already in Lib (Russell Broadbent) and NP (Darren Chester) hands. What are you thinking? Perhaps Abbott’s strategy is to put the frighteners on the rest of the working class electorates, especially around Hunter Valley, and do an audacious reverse takeover thus winning with the help of Abbott’s battlers.
The two Jones interviews are instructive in the way the Abbott mind works: cynical and machine-like manipulation of the audience solely for the purpose of winning, or at least not losing badly, for the Liberals. The science, or any genuine concern for the environment/planet’s future is just verbal overburden in the mining of electoral ore; in the end it’s the politics, stupid.
Anyone else looking forward to the “world government” Lord Monckton of Barking-Mad keeps talking about? I for one welcome our new global overlords!
Here’s the rational Wages of Fear explanation you’ve all been waiting for
The Liberal party have picked a couple of misfits and losers (Abbot, Joyce, Hockey, Ruddock) to take a tanker of nitroglycerine (current shadow cabinet) across poorly maintained and dangerous roads to put out an oil rig fire (probable Rudd election victory) once there, they’ll explode the nitroglycerine – sucking all the publicity oxygen out of the Rudd campaign. Hockey collects his money and then goes on to drive off a cliff and plunge to his death.
Will they make it to the oil fields without exploding? I CAN’T NOT WATCH!!
Interesting that you mention Alan, Sir Henry, according to my sister who listens incessantly to 2GB to monitor..said that early during the spill period – when Abbott had said, ‘oh, we’ll just pass the ETS’ – Jones who was reading out lists of email addresses every day constantly, and how to multiple send etc and exhorting people to go and do it now, apparently turned on Abbott exclusively for 24 hours telling everyone to email Abbott and “how could this happen, he’s one of us and he needs to come to his senses right now” etc. And he then tore into Hockey for whatever days until the vote.
She thinks Jones and Co have become totally emboldened by their role in the Lib Right ETS coup thang – and feel again that they’re major players in the game.
Triply so for Jones.
The despised Rudd apparently doesn’t do Jones .. ever .. and this is after having had the PM on every few days for more than a decade…Good Morning Prime Minister…Good Morning Alan.
And note in the linked interview how once all the ETS talking points have been ticked off one by one, in a most methodical fashion – just time for one last quick agenda item – boat people ….what else.
Sir Henry C – not often I’m awake at this hour, After reading your comment I watched Lateline, WA time, went to bed but couldn’t sleep. Very rare for me. Abbott was telling barefaced lies, and Jones didn’t pull him up! He repeated again the one about Flannery and recent warming which has been well and truly corrected by Flannery on the ABC.
Abbott’s Wiki bio says that Abbott “is claimed to be a devout Catholic” Devout is generally held to mean god-fearing and law-abiding so I guess an ex-seminarian, well trained in casuistry, doesn’t have to worry about honesty.
His reference to Munich felt to me more of an unconscious projection around his own ambitions. This man is ruthless and in a different time and country could be very dangerous. I also suspect he is a bit unhinged with delusions of grandeur. He’s read a disgraceful nothing of the real literature on climate change, though I recall on Q & A he claimed to have “almost finished” Plimer’s book! How did he get to be a Rhodes scholar?
I think I’ll stay up now and read. Otherwise I’ll wake in fright after dreams of of Abbott, his Bishops and his Catholic shadow ministers menacingly hooded, an Inquisition doing over Tim Flannery, making him recant.
“And yet it warms!” Tim will say, sotto voce!
Abbott told radio host Alan Jones – worth checking out for the mutual feather stroking
I think I’m going to be ill…
The Lateline interview was noteworthy for many things, well covered by above comments, but also for how easily Abbott loses his temper.
Abbott does not tolerate disagreement or probing questions well. He got angrier as the interview went on and toward the end was quite loud and shouty with the whites of his eyes showing as he widened them in anger.
Should Abbott lose it or become nakedly aggressive in Prime Time he’ll go the way of Latham. The trick for Labor will be how to needle Abbott effectively. Who gets under Abbott’s skin the most ? Roxon ?
Gillard.
Any intelligent female.
Well, adrian @ 86, seeing as there are several of them in the Cabinet, Abbott’s fucked.
Good.
Abbott likes Gillard ‘the flirting has to stop’, so doubt she would enrage him. I suspect Abbott sees Roxon as a lightweight and not his intellectual equal. Goading from Roxon would represent provocation from a fool in Abbott’s eyes and get under his skin quickly.
Rudd is Abbott’s matching cross-dispatch-box Gorilla and will be treated like any other competing Gorilla – He’ll try to smash his head in – but the law of the jungle scenario will provide familiarity and context to their chest beating and will not enrage Abbott, merely evince routine and ritualised hostilities made for TV.
Albanese, the human spittle machine, is similarly a conventional opponent.
Tony Jones fired Abbott up as TJ had him in the dentist’s chair for 15 mins of continuous intellectual discussion. This cannot be replicated in current political culture except in sideshows such as Lateline or Q&A.
So I reckon the best strategy is to trot Roxon out for a bit of vaudeville and a direct question to Abbott every now and then. He’ll chuck a wobbly for sure.
Baraholka, I think you’re forgetting the “That’s bullshit!” incident during the election when Abbott was late for a debate with Roxon. She certainly got under his skin then (and I’d pay good money to know exactly what she whispered to him immediately prior).
Yeah that’s what I’m saying. Use Roxon to enrage Abbott. She gets under his skin. Or find someone else who Abbott doesn’t rate and trot them out. He can’t tolerate needle from those he regards as his inferiors.
Well, that’d be any woman, just for a start, Baraholka. He’s not exactly a metrosexual, is he?
I heard Joyce on the radio this morning. All I kept talking about was what’s going on with farmers in Roma and Charter Towers. Doesn’t he realise that as Shadow Finance Minister he needs to concern himself with a slightly larger canvas?
I’d really like to know how Christopher Pyne does reconcile himself to being on that front bench. One assumes he does not expect the situation to last long, and will not actually be sitting on that front bench with those people???
I occasionally catch him on ABC local and the last time I heard him was pre-spill where he was discussing being inundated with emails from supposedly loyal Liberal voters saying they would abandon the party if it didn’t ditch support of the ETS. He said the majority of those emails were coming out of QLD and WA and that he did not think that it was a reflection of the broader community, and that ditching the ETS was not in Australia’s or the Liberal party’s interests.
He would surely know that abandoning the ETS and taking a right turn would make him even more vulnerable in his already marginal electorate, so really, his presence in the shadow cabinet, if it is as the token moderate, seems kind of kamikaze if he expects that to be the team that the Libs go to the next election with.
Hmm, so if Qld & WA separated from Oz, then the people in those places WOULD be the broader community in their exiting new independant nation?
Works for me.
Steve, if Qld & WA separate from Oz, you’ll find that FNQ will want to split from Brisvegas as well.
Pre spill Warren Entsch was making noises to return from his retirement. It will be interesting to see if he is still keen to stand again in Leichhardt after this debacle.
Qld split from Brisbane? Now you ARE making me excited!!
Mr Entsch I have known for a long time, long before he
found a new scamentered politics. His has that “colourful” aspect to him, (also found in Peter Beattie, Bob Katter, Wilson Tuckey, Barnaby Joyce, Bob Hawke et al) that gives a following others may not get. Leichhardt is a very diverse seat (and a large inaccessible one). He is an opportunist, & it wouldn’t matter WHAT the policies or otherwise are, he is interested inreboarding the gravy trainonce again representing the people of Leichhardt.The incumbent in that seat is a very 2-dimensional hollow man type, with Zero charisma. However Mr. Entsch burned a few bridges in the electorate just before he finished his last term.
From recent photos Mr. Entsch seems to have lost some weight & trimmed up since he retired. Perhaps he had to -ugh- do some work to support himself. This may not be entirely unrelated to his newfound urge to represent the people of Leichhardt once again.
Gee there’s a moth-eaten, musty smell to the whole cabinet. It’s like Madam Tussaud’s wax museum. It’s almost comic: Andrews, Bishop, Abetz don’t remotely look, talk – never mind think – like Australia in 2009.
Old, angry, proudly misinformed, bigoted – that about sums up the Liberal Party today. Don’t worry about this by-election or that poll, looking deeper and long-term the Coalition is in deep trouble.
…shadow cabinet, I should say.
How does Abbott cope with Rudd? I can imagine Abbott getting shoutier and shoutier, and Rudd getting more and more suave… And whether he flirts with Julia Gillard or not, I suspect he wouldn’t like her to hand him too many of her brilliantly-barbed one-liners.
Been too busy to catch much of Question Time this year, but the Opposition seemed hopelessly outclassed.
Blimey, Abbott’s been Opposition Leader for..what?…a week? And already people are talking about dismantling the Federation.
Wellll… we could solve the Abetz problem by towing Tasmania out to sea somewhere and leaving it there.
“Wellll… we could solve the Abetz problem by towing Tasmania out to sea somewhere and leaving it there.”
Someone already tried that and it didn’t work.
Pollytickedoff @ 102,
I vaguely remember during the Gordon/Franklin dam protests, that Fraser was reported saying he wished he could tow Tassie down to Antartica.